The Sun & The Moon Story: An English/Korean Bed Time Story

Like most families, we’ve slowly started a bedtime routine to get our daughter to sleep at an appropriate time. That routine includes brushing teeth, changing into pjs, reading books, and then listening to a bedtime song as she drifts off to sleep… most nights.

In our house, my Korean husband speaks only Korean with our daughter and I speak only English with her so when we’re having a family discussion, there are always two languages utilized. This is great most of the time but I quickly realized that when it came time for bed it was super difficult to find bedtime stories for kids that were bilingual. Our daughter would consistently ask for me to read the story… and then for my husband to read the same story, or vice versa. She wanted to hear the same bedtime story in both of her languages.

Ultimately this meant that every night at least one of us, daddy or mommy, were translating on the fly and it’s not as easy as you think… especially when it’s stories from favorites like Dr. Seuss.

The Sun & The Moon Story: A Bilingual Bed Time Story; A Korean & English Bed Time Story

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When our daughter was younger and didn’t pay attention to small details, translating stories was fine because we could gloss over whichever bits we couldn’t translate but as she grew and listened she began to stop us midway to say that that wasn’t how the other parent had told the story. I began to search for bedtime stories for bilingual kids and had a tough time finding them. I wanted a book that wasn’t necessarily about education, because there are a TON of ESL books out there, but are more about family time… multicultural family time, bilingual family time.

When she was between the ages of 2 and 4 she didn’t realize she was bilingual. She’d ask what something was and basically whichever parent got to her first with the answer is what she would know an object as until, through repetition, eventually the other language word was added. It was during this time that reading the bilingual stories were especially important. She knew some words in English and others in Korean and wasn’t completely balanced and it was as if hearing the story in both language allowed her to actually understand the entire story.

We’ve taught our daughter to be proud that she’s bilingual that she is both Korean and English. She’s not half Korean and half American. She is American and she is Korean. To appreciate both sides and aspects of her, I began to write stories that we could read together and this is the first that has come to life. It’s a story that came organically from talking with my daughter about how the day begins and ends and how we must go to bed to rest and energize. Much like most kids, I imagine, there are nights when she is too excited for the next day or too energized from the day at hand that she doesn’t want to sleep at all and so I shared with her The Sun & The Moon Story. And I want to share that story with more people now. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

In the morning the sun appears. Her long golden rays reach through windows and wake us up. She is so BRIGHT!

아침이 되자 해님이 두둥실 떠올랐어요. 따뜻한 햇살이 창문을 똑똑 두드리며 우리를 깨워주었어요. 아이 눈부셔!해님은 정말 밝아요.

The Sun & The Moon Story is a bilingual children’s book written in both English and Korean. The story, written for young children, talks about how the sun greets us in the morning with bright rays of sunshine and helps us see the bugs, the flowers, and the world around us throughout the day.

The colors in the book change from bright yellows and oranges in the beginning to blues and purples as the day progresses in the story. It’s a calming bedtime story that takes children from morning to evening and comforts them as they drift off to sleep.

The Sun & The Moon Story is available on Amazon.com

Who Is This Book For?

This is a great book for so many people really and it is a beautiful gift to give someone. If you’re celebrating or going to a first birthday celebration in Korea or for a Korean friend abroad, this would be a lovely gift for the child. The first birthday is an auspicious time and big event in Korean culture. When I first released this book, teachers who wanted to leave Korea and give their young students a gift bought this for them. And of course, it’s perfect for any family, Korean, foreign, multicultural, or otherwise that is raising their child bilingually and is learning and speaking Korean and English.

The Artist: Raquel P. Cruz

Raquel Cruz is a local artist here in Korea and she beautifully utilizes imagery from both western and Korean perspectives. Raquel was born in Madrid, Spain and grew up in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She lived in Honduras for 15 years and that is where she fell in love with the colors you can see in a lot of her art. After high school, she moved to the US for college and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis on Drawing and Painting from Biola University in California.

Raquel P. Cruz: The Sun & The Moon Story

Raquel currently lives in Seoul, South Korea where she has lived since 2016. She is inspired by traditional Korean art, things she sees, eats or does, flowers and her cats. Currently, the medium she is working with are markers and small sketchbooks like Moleskine so she can carry supplies with her wherever she goes and work on the spot. She has made small prints of some of her favorite drawings and illustrations and sells them at local markets in Seoul.

Also, she has recently started making and selling stickers. She also takes commissions and has worked with locals to make signs for their stores or gifts for loved ones. She can do anything you want and uses watercolors and ink. The best way of getting a hold of her is sending an email to [email protected] or sending a DM through instagram @raaqueelc.

It has been quite the journey learning how to self-publish a book so that we can have a real touchable item to hold on to before we go to bed. I hope that other multicultural families just like us enjoy this story that really came to life thanks to Raquel’s gorgeous artwork that manages to encompass both western and Korean imagery. Read it with your children and please let me know what you think.